


Avoir le mal de quelqu’un

by The_Amarathine_Carrion



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mild Gore, Pining, Sylvain Week (Fire Emblem), Sylvix- freeform, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Amarathine_Carrion/pseuds/The_Amarathine_Carrion
Summary: Sylvain week 2020Day 3: Red/water“Red is the color of banners announcing the Adrestian army that haunts him whenever he closes his eyes. It’s the color that flows from the bodies of those he laughed and ate with who ended up as corpses on the tail of his lance.Red is also the color of Felix’s cheeks whenever Sylvain catches him staring. It’s the color of the flowers in the greenhouse Ashe tenderly cares for in lieu of Dedue. It’s the scarf that Annette wraps around his neck whenever he leaves the dining hall so he won’t catch cold on his way to the stables. So, Sylvain cannot truthfully say he hates the color red, but rather that it follows him- and he cannot predict whether that result will lead him to life or to death, to foe or to friend.”
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 9
Kudos: 69
Collections: Sylvain Week 2020!





	Avoir le mal de quelqu’un

Despite it’s reputation as a barren land, many rivers run through the territory of Gautier.

By the time Sylvain is eight, he has crossed all of them. By the time he is twenty-five, he has lost count of the times he washed the Lance of Ruin clean in their shallows, watching the red separate into nothingness as the clear currents carry the blood of the Srengi away. The process is quicker than a few blinks of the eye in the Great Tree Moon, where the melting frost makes it easy to follow the roar of rushing water from far away.

There is one river, in particular, Sylvain favors. Here is where he taught Felix and Ingrid how to swim, in Imperial Year 1169, during the warmest days of the Blue Sea Moon. Surrounded by bushes of berries bearing the sheen of rubies, Sylvain wonders if he is tainting the place that once echoed with the presence of laughter and fervent whispers of promises. During his childhood, the ground was stained, like their mouths, with the juices of all the ripe little fruits they could find nearby. Now that he is recognized as a man of Gautier, his inheritance is permeated with the tang of blood, impossible to erase within the injustice of their monarchy.

He finds the clearing, trailing crimson footprints, and departs, leaving them as he came— knowing the futility of covering them, as they will refresh when he returns, late the following day.

Regardless, he kneels. His knee has, by now, created a divot in the earth that marks the spot where he spends the grisly task in somber seclusion. All evidence of death is swallowed by life, which is a never ending force that stops for no being. He doesn’t think of semantics, beyond this acceptance. He kills easily now, though not without regard— never. He promised Felix he wouldn’t.

Remembering his promises to Felix centered him and allowed him to sleep a few hours by the light of the dawn. His body curls inward in the dark corners of the cave, waiting for the safety of day- no fire to warm him or cast a warning flame. 

This part of his role was something he couldn’t foresee. He settles under his many fur pelts and ponders instead of dreams. Looking back, the Monastery, with all it’s mysteries, betrayals, and murder, seems like a sanctuary. He thinks of the Professor- how they disappeared in the midst of the chaos. He thinks of his Blue Lions- of Ingrid and Dimitri.

He thinks of Felix. He thinks of Felix most of all.

He remains immobile, wrapped tightly in the pelts, still shivering as his brain recounts every aspect of his best friend like he was real and right there beside him. Sylvain doesn’t let his mind wander to the way Felix’s hair felt tangled in his fingers, or the intoxicating huff of his breath when he pretended not to enjoy how Sylvain left little declarations of love around his scarring skin. He doesn’t have the energy to entertain those types of thoughts anymore. He’s not a boy chasing frivolous pleasures in reaction to how he’s doomed to fulfill his duties. That era has passed. It’s important for him to remain inconspicuous.

Besides, his heart doesn’t react well to the shadows.

Morning comes and Sylvain slumbers, in hour increments at most, lance gripped tightly under the loosened furs. He has awakened to the glint of steel at his throat or directly pointed between his eyes more than a few times, but it has never happened here. The slightest sound rouses him now, whereas before he was punished by a boot to his back whenever he overslept and Felix took it upon himself to drag him outside after breakfast.

It’s far easier to lose track of time on these “missions”, but Sylvain at least follows the seasons. He returns home periodically, when a summons arrives or at the turn of a particularly compelling change in the weather. He looks back to the southern horizon when he mounts his horse, knowing it would be only a few days ride to Fraldarius if he were to leave now. There is no stronger longing in his chest than to pick up his reins and go.

It’s no use. He doesn’t know what Felix is up to, but he certainly won’t be doing it from there.

He knows so little of the fates of all his friends. Sylvain couldn’t predict what exactly Ingrid would be allowed to do in a war like this, but at least no one was very interested in marrying her with the Kingdom as it is now. Dimitri is dead, the rumors say, but it’s becoming harder to believe it. If it were true, Dedue would have fallen first, and he has heard nothing regarding the Duscur man. Ashe was still fond of those who had done wrong in the eyes of the church and paid with their life. His temper alongside his personal pursuit of justice might lead him along the wrong path one day. All he could really hope for Annette and Mercedes was that they were at least somewhere safe, preferably together. 

He hoped none of them would be forced to wash the provision of war off in their own rivers, holding their hands under the pressure and watching the life drain from their palms. He’s earned this loathsome lesson from his exploits: Water can lift the dirt and the grime and the sweat, but even after you break the surface again, the weight of murder remains.

* * *

It is the misfortune of a stranger—a child—that revives him and sets his future along the path to victory. Sylvain will account everything that he won in the unification of Fodlan under Dimitri’s reign to her, even years afterward, when he retires his lance and walks into the withered woods of Sreng with his hands outstretched in an extension of peace.

Sylvain finds the young girl by the border, just beyond the ruined village where descendants of Srengi settlers have lived under the allowance of each Margrave Gautier for generations now.

Everything of value had been ransacked and burned. This tragedy has happened before, as recently as during his father’s lifetime. They have never been offered protection, only permittance to exist there. In times of hardship such as these, theirs wasn’t the only village fallen to the scourge of bandits and thieves.

She sees his red hair and pale skin and cries out, running to him. Sylvain unthinkingly throws the lance away and kneels to catch her in his arms. The girl trembles and presses herself closer into his security, speaking in a language that he hardly understands, and is even less equipped to respond in.

She doesn’t recognize who he is. She’s too young to note the implication of the difference between the color of their eyes. Snot and dirt and tears join whatever matter has already made its home on Sylvain’s armor as she thrashes and sobs, pointing every so often to blackened landmarks that were once houses and shops, when he carries her past the demolition. He whistles for his horse, not caring about the aches that will scream their protests later when he’s finished washing her in the nearest river. He’s not letting go of her for a second until then.

Sylvain watches her sleep once they return to the cave. She’s impossibly small, rolled up multiple times over in one of his furs with room to spare. He doesn’t know what he can do for her other than this. She can’t remain with him, and she is the only survivor. She’s much too young to leave on her own. He restrains the burn in his eyes, willing himself to stay silent. He can, at least, control himself for the sake of giving her the opportunity to rest.

The future Margrave guards her all night long, and when the sun rises, she still sleeps. It is high past midday when he wakes her with his decision.

Sylvain’s lance is left behind, hidden in wilderness only he knows the location of. The child clings to his chest in fear—yet, in trust—as they ride back to the border. He follows the rising trail of smoke in the skyline until it carries him further than he’s ever gone before. 

He feels sharp eyes tracking him as he crosses over, despite the speed of his stallion. The air tastes strange here, and it’s too cold, even for him having acclimated to the freezing temperatures all his life. Sylvain has never felt so sick and determined as he urges the animal onward.

The village he comes across is full of Srengi who are, unsurprisingly, more than a little unhappy to see him entering their territory. The vivid green eyes of the women burn holes into him when they take note of the tiny body nestled entirely in the safety of one arm. Indecipherable yelling comes from the short, angry crowd he sees forming a wall of defiance ahead of him. They leer as he slows into a stop, cooing lowly at the girl when she whimpers— smoothing her windswept hair back into a healthy shape.

“It’s okay. They’ll take care of you— like I did.” He tells her, and she looks up to him and nods, so confident in the truth of his words that she releases the death grip around as much of his waist as she could reach. He’s never received such an honest gaze before. It breaks his heart in ways that he didn’t know existed- ways that reveal it was whole to begin with.

The Srengi encircle the mounted pair and begin to murmur among themselves. Sylvain doesn’t bother to listen. The few words he knew likely weren’t going to surface in this dialect. The young girl, he discovered before they returned, understood and spoke his native language. He pats her head, continuing to comfort her, feeling a pang of sadness at the reality of their final moments.

“Brother,” She says, “Stay with me.”

 _Oh._ A part of him wishes he could- an ignorant part of him that wanted to forget everything, to close his eyes to the horrors of their civil war and rest as she did. He suppresses the desire right away. Sylvain shakes his head, a dull ache spreading through his temples.

“I can’t sweetheart. Not now. You won’t need me around as long as you have them.” He adjusts his grip and carefully makes to dismount, wary of the hostility still hanging heavy in the air.

“I need you.” She insists. She doesn’t realize just how hard those three words hit him. The innocence is piercing and it comes without forgiveness.

He sets her on the ground and _Goddess, she is tiny._ Her forehead falls somewhere around his knees. The children of the village that peer from behind their mother’s vermillion skirts aren’t much larger. It’s undeniable proof of her heritage.

The Srengi don’t move as he turns her around, pushing her gently toward them. She digs her heels into the ground as if she doesn’t weigh anything at all and whines, looking back over her shoulder to plead with him.

It isn’t wise to linger, but he can’t leave her like this. He chuckles lightheartedly, like his chest doesn’t feel as if it’s been poked through with hundreds of shards of glass, and leans forward, whispering over the little staticky ends of deep ginger hair.

“I’ll come back. I promise.”

She considers it, lips set in a pout, fear abated for the time being. He stops leading her while there is still a healthy distance between him and the group. He begins to plan his escape in the event that things go not so great from here on out.

“Promise?” Her eyes are shining with the idea now, and Sylvain doesn’t regret a moment of the danger he’s putting himself in to ensure he leaves her without any additional trauma.

“I do. I always keep my promises.” He winks at her, and a sliver of a smile graces her wan face. He begins to back away while she stares at him, relieved to see that the Srengi’s attention is shifting as well.

He’s quick to jump back on his horse as she accepts their advances. There is a narrow window where he can gallop through and he takes the opportunity to do so, waving to her as he goes. It is not until he’s exited the forest and crossed over into his lands again that he stops to wipe the sweat from his brow. He’d half expected a fight to the death there, but they hadn’t even sent anyone after him.

To them, he was the executioner who manned an invisible boundary, descended from a long line of invaders, but to her he was a protector. To her, he was everything his title suggested him to be, and for her, he would never be anything but the man she ran to for help and hope again.

The Red Wolf Moon had almost passed by the close of the event and Sylvain finds himself faced with yet another deliberation. He hunts and he thinks and he gathers enough supplies to last him for the extent of his next journey. He sets out for Garreg Mach at sunset, shades of red and orange bleeding into the distance, sending no messages to his father explaining his absence. It was high time he kept to his other promises.

* * *

When he reunites with his friends, it is not the situation he’d been hoping for. Dimitri was beyond even the Professor’s guidance and without his cognizance, Faerghus would fall to their King’s own ravings. Felix’s change was subtle. He was sharper, more collected, and distant in a way Sylvain couldn’t figure out. Ingrid was muted. All of her lecturing took on a haggard appearance. Her brow was constantly furrowed over something she couldn’t resolve. Were it 10 years ago, Sylvain would feel more confident about holding them all together again.

But this is war, and his hopes were lost as he realizes that no one escaped unscathed by it. It was hardest on him to be faced with wounds you can’t fix. He’d rather bandage every square inch of his own body than have to pretend he isn’t bothered by the way everyone flinches and ignores their inner torment for the sake of marching on into the unknown depths.

Red was the color of Ferdinand’s hair hitting him like a whip when he fell from his horse. It was the color of bubbling spit that Sylvain wiped away as he held the other Paladin’s hand when he heaved his last breath. Red is the color of banners announcing the Adrestian army that haunt him whenever he closes his eyes. It’s the color that flows from the bodies of those he laughed and ate with who ended up as corpses on the tail of his lance.

Red is also the color of Felix’s cheeks whenever Sylvain catches him staring. It’s the color of the flowers in the greenhouse Ashe tenderly cares for in lieu of Dedue. It’s the scarf that Annette wraps around his neck whenever he leaves the dining hall, so he won’t catch cold on his way to the stables. So, Sylvain cannot truthfully say he hates the color red, but rather that it follows him- and he cannot predict whether that result will lead him to life or to death, to foe or to friend. 

Water is mutable and it is something Sylvain studied until he could replicate it’s quality. He remembers being fascinated by waterfalls as a child when he discovered them on accident after Duke Rodrigue invited him to accompany their family to the Rhodos Coast. Sylvain drew his arm through it and waved his hand back and forth, letting the water lave over the appendage until he was called back.

As an adult, waterfalls come in the form of sorrow splashing against his neck. Sylvain’s shoulder is spacious and strong and functions best when it serves as a sieve. He rotates this service- finding that even Mercedes needed the filter every now and then.

 _Brother,_ the Srengi girl had called him, and she was right. It was all he’d ever been and how he would continue to be. He’d learned how to replace Miklan’s missing role in his life by creating his own. Sylvain couldn’t stop now, even if he needed someone the way they need him, because _they need him_ , and Sylvain needs to be needed.

He forgets he’s alive sometimes, without it.

* * *

“You’re hurt again.”

Felix’s tone is 98% accusatory on a good day, but today isn’t one of those, so it was probably more like 130%. He glares at him from over where he crosses his arms, reclining in the chair beside the infirmary cot.

Sylvain grins as he raises a hand still caked with dirt and blisters and dried blood to rest just above Felix’s knee in assurance. “It’s nothing. A wound like this? Mercedes can heal it in under a minute, no sweat!”

Felix grumbles darkly, staring at the hand as he undoubtedly wrestles with the urge to either thrust it away or drag it higher. “That’s not the problem.”

Sylvain acts like he’s confused, but really his throat is so dry at the sincerity in Felix’s voice that he’s surprised he can continue the charade. “Oh? Well, what’s the problem then, Fe?”

Felix refuses to look at him. He digs his nails into his thighs, shaking with some long pent up emotion. Sylvain gets it- really he does. They haven’t talked much since he’s returned, and yet he already went and did exactly the thing he knows pisses Felix off the most: stepping in front of an opponent he could handle by himself and taking the blow.

It was his mistake, but the armored knight was clumsy, and went down easily. Sylvain was going to be fine. He had too many promises to keep to truly mess around like that.

He reaches further to grab at Felix’s claws. It was an action he was more afraid of than taking an axe to the chest, which had pretty much just occurred, so... yeah. He was an idiot, but he didn’t care as long as Felix was safe. Felix obviously disagreed. He accepts the contact, bristling in a half silence, before hissing and snapping in a much more predictable way.

“You… you’re the problem! Stop being so eager to die!”

Felix pushes his hand away, crossing his legs as well so there could be no repeat offenses. Felix was being pretty unfair, in Sylvain’s opinion. His armor was well built and the axe was rusty. There was never any danger of that.

“I’m not! I just didn’t want to see you hurt— that’s all. Is that so bad?”

Felix huffs. His hair is longer now and constantly getting in the way. Sylvain wishes he’d let it down sometimes, or even better, let him run his fingers through it while they bathe— just like they used to.

“Consider the notion that I want the same thing. I hate having to sit here and watch you mope around in some sick bed because you stuck your nose too far in my business.”

Sylvain swings his legs around suddenly, sitting at the edge of the bed and ignoring the burn in his chest when he grabs Felix and pulls him closer. The chair creaks as it slides and covers the shocked noise he makes when Sylvain presses his lips against his cheek, deftly loosening the deep maroon tie that was hidden away in the midnight blue asylum of his hair.

“I’ll stick my nose wherever I need to to keep you alive, Felix. I won’t die. All I’m asking is for you to trust me.”

Felix squirms under his attention, but doesn’t retreat. Sylvain doesn’t push his luck. It’s been many years since the last time they’ve been so physically close to one another and he’s not exactly proud that it’s under these circumstances. Still, he thinks of all those hours spent cleaning lives from his lance and the patience he developed by reflecting on moments like these with Felix. So, he waits.

“I do…trust you.” Felix finally says. His shoulders droop as if he’s admitted some great burden. Sylvain grasps his arms, pulling him in until he thuds against his chest. He winces at the reverberating pain, but his hand on Felix’s head ensures the swordsman cannot look up to see it.

Felix feels it though. “Idiot..! You’re still hurt.”

Sylvain starts to laugh at his pouty tone, then coughs when he finds it to be unpleasant. He tips Felix’s chin up, lowering the hand on his head to the small of his back. “I’d be more hurt if you said you didn’t trust me. You know I love it when you’re honest about any positive feelings you have toward me.”

“You’re a fool. I can’t believe I love such a reckless—”

Felix’s sudden blush is like little drops of cherries. He covers his mouth, eyes widening in a way that is _absolutely adorable._ Sylvain wouldn’t say it aloud until the day he had an actual death wish. The flush of his face is the most beautiful thing he’s seen in the near decades they’ve spent together. It’s the same blood coursing under skin Sylvain is too familiar with splitting, but here it functions as proof that the man he loves is alive and he _wants_ him.

“Yeah?” He breathes, hot and _terrified_ into the back of Felix’s trembling fingertips. He removes them, pulling them down slowly until they’re back to grasping at his thighs. Sylvain’s hands press down on top of them as he shifts a few inches closer, the tips of their noses touching now. “Are you just saying that because I’m hurt, Fe?”

Felix’s shaky breathing seems to consume any air left in the atmosphere even as he exhales. Sylvain sends a silent prayer to whoever thought to leave the window open, as the draft supplies both the oxygen he needs and the glow of the sun refracting from the various vulneraries on the shelves— encasing their bodies in a rosy luster.

“No.” Felix mumbles against him, inhaling sharply when Sylvain thumbs his cheek. “Don’t make me say it again...”

Sylvain doesn’t. He kisses Felix, properly this time, soft and open, with tongue and genuine gasps and vulnerable patterns of heartfelt movement against thoroughly swollen lips. The tragedies that have come and are to come are forgotten in their meeting. The flames licking at the inside of their mouths and fueling the hunger in their bodies is the warmth Sylvain missed in his darkest days, where only the unnatural brilliance of his lance’s crest stone was there to light his way.

Felix’s arms raise to wrap around him and his hands become their own river, rippling between the spaces of Sylvain’s ribs, cleansing his heart where the clearing he frequented could not, acknowledging his tears where the soil gave no indication of where they fell.

Here there is Felix, and Felix is the river of water and fire, of earth and of air, of accountability and forgiveness.

There is only one of them he knows of which runs between the border of Gautier and Fraldarius. Sylvain has never attempted to swim it. It is something that could drown him without warning; something wild and serrated and free. Water laps in all directions, spilling onto the bank and wearing the dirt down until it sinks under the pressure— opening wide to integrate into the new dimension.

By the war’s end, Sylvain is twenty-six, and he has finally built a bridge sturdy enough to withstand the dépaysement. He crosses into Sreng once again without weapon or whim— fields of yarrow and a head of flame among the sparse wheat waiting to welcome him to the other side.

“You came back.”

Sylvain stops before her, rustling in his pockets for one of the ribbons Felix gifted to him. Bending, he fixes the ivory length into a bow by the back of her skull. The first fall of rain marks it’s warning against his forehead, and, smiling into expectant emerald eyes, he grasps her hand, leading her toward shelter again.

“I made you a promise, Princess. A Gautier keeps his promises.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thefriedpipes)! Come talk more about fe3h with me 🤗


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